René Panhard

René Panhard’s biography

René Louis Francois PANHARD born May 27, 1841 in Paris at 22 rue Bergère in the 9th arrondissement after brilliant studies at the college Sainte-Barbe, he made the Ecole Centrale.

Shortly after his departure, he met Mr. Perin and came to work in his woodworking machine factory. Very soon Monsieur PERIN asked him to join him. The case became the PERIN-PANHARD house.

The workshops turned out to be too small because the affair was growing, and it was then that René PANHARD bought the lands of the Avenue d’Ivry and sent for his comrade to help him reorganize all this. of promotion, Emile LEVASSOR.

Shortly after Mr. PERIN’s death, René PANHARD asked Emile LEVASSOR to become his partner. The two men had very different characters but they were perfectly complementary. They decided to embark on the great automobile adventure that was then called “cars without horses”.

In November 1890, they decided not to build prototypes but 30 cars to satisfy the pioneers who wanted to use this mode of propulsion. They were not orders: cars were built first, and then, afterwards, they were sold. The automobile industry was born that day, Avenue d’Ivry in the workshops of PANHARD & amp; LEVASSOR.

While Emile LEVASSOR was a brilliant and austere engineer, René PANHARD was a kind, jovial, brilliant financial man and undisputed trader.

Soon their business grew. PANHARD cars & amp; LEVASSOR were the first to be exported around the world. Very generous, René PANHARD took care of the others, remained long mayor of Thiais, he died at La Bourboule where he was in cure on July 16, 1908.